Pickles to deliver RWM keynote

The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Eric Pickles will deliver the ministerial keynote speech at this year’s RWM show in Birmingham in September.

Pickles will give his speech in the Local Authority Theatre, which will focus on councils’ waste needs and host debates on TEEP guidelines, targeting recycling engagement and best practice case studies.

The views of the senior Conservative politician on recycling have often been at odds with local authorities who have switched in significant numbers away from weekly household collections.

During the current Parliament, he introduced a £250m fund to try to persuade councils to revert to weekly collections but the initiative was seen within the sector as failing to achieve its goals.

At the turn of the year, his department faced widespread criticism after publishing a ‘Bin Bible’ in an attempt to push local authorities into weekly collections.

The document was initially published in error on Boxing Day and re-published nine days later.

More recently, he was blamed for taking too long to rule on a planning application for an EfW plant in Norfolk which, in the meantime, lost our on valuable PFI credits from Defra.

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